Kiley Hamlin

Research interests:
My research focuses on the role of evaluative processes in our everyday cognitions about the world. In particular, I examine our tendency to judge individuals’ actions as good or bad, as deserving of reward or punishment, and as morally praiseworthy or blameworthy. In addition, I ask whether and how these social and moral evaluations influence our understanding of others’ future acts, their mental states, and their underlying personalities. I examine these questions using preverbal infants and young toddlers, in order to study the foundational origins of these processes before complex cognitive abilities (such as language and inhibitory control) fully develop, and prior to the influences of cultural norms and values.

Kiley Hamlin is also part of the Early Development Research Group, a consortium of six research centers interested in the development of language, learning, and social understanding in infants and children.

Hamlin, J.K., & Steckler, C.M. (2015). The moral infant: On the roots of moral reasoning and behavior in the first two years, in Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. R. Scott & S. Kosslyn (Eds.), Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons. Submission 9 pages.

Hamlin, J.K. (2014). Context-dependent social evaluation in 4.5-month-old human infants: The role of domain-general versus domain-specific processes in the development of social evaluation. Frontiers in Psychology, 5: 614. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00614